Wounds Are Forever (Self-Portrait as the national poet), at the Maxim Gorki Theater

Staged reading of the piece by Sivan Ben Yishai at the Maxim Gorki Theater Studio Я. With Sesede Terziyan as well as costumes and performative elements out of Moran Sanderovich’s work Anastatica.

This theatrical piece interweaves two timelines in Israel: the 2014 present, marked by a political murder and the protagonist’s departure to Germany, and a historical narrative starting in 1938 Nazi Germany. Through the character of Sivan (sharing the author’s name), the text traces a journey from Holocaust survival through Soviet resistance to Zionist activism in Palestine. The protagonist embodies both victim and perpetrator roles, while the piece explores collective trauma, political violence, and national identity through a feminist lens. Using elements of brutality and comedy, the work confronts the complex relationship between past and present, personal and political, all inscribed on the protagonist’s body as a vessel for historical memory.